I working on a literary piece and trying to find the first known use in Latin of of "pulcher" (feminine pulchra, neuter pulchrum, comparative pulchrior, superlative pulcherrimus), e.g., "first known use found in Virgil's . . . ".

I do not know Latin, nor am I at all acquainted with linguistics. If there are resources that would be accessible for a person like me (retired lawyer, in other words, I am not without reasoning capacity), I'd appreciate learning whatever you might suggest in this regard.

Thank you for those who responded to my request for assistance with finding the first known use in Latin of what became the English word "pulchritude." Your help is much appreciated. If anyone thinks of anything else which might be shared on this topic, feel free to do so, as I will continue to monitor this site. Best wishes to all.
– Curt PawlischJul 23 '18 at 14:57

What's up with the orthography in your quote? Does acute accent denote long vowel or stress?
– WilsonJul 17 '18 at 14:18

1

@Wilson: I don't know what conventions the HP corpus uses (an explanation was not immediately accessible on the website), but those look like ictus, so having to do with stress or metre. Most probably unrelated to apices.
– Cerberus♦Jul 17 '18 at 14:30